The present invention relates generally to chucks for use with drills or with electric or pneumatic power drivers. More particularly, the present invention relates to a chuck of the keyless type which may be tightened or loosened by hand or by actuation of the driver motor.
Both hand and electric or pneumatic tool drivers are well known. Although twist drills are the most common tools used with such drivers, the tools may also comprise screwdrivers, nut drivers, burrs, mounted grinding stones and other cutting or abrading tools. Since the tools may have shanks of varying diameter or the cross-section of the tool shank may be polygonal, the device is usually provided with a chuck which is adjustable over a relatively wide range. The chuck may be attached to the driver by a threaded or tapered bore.
A wide variety of chucks have been developed in the art. In one form of chuck, three jaws spaced circumferentially approximately 120 degrees apart from each other are constrained by angularly disposed passageways in a body attached onto the drive shaft and configured so that rotation of the body in one direction with respect to a constrained nut engaging the jaws forces the jaws into gripping relationship with the cylindrical shank of a tool, while rotation in the opposite direction releases the gripping relationship. Such a chuck may be keyless if it is rotated by hand. Examples of such chucks are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,125,673 entitled "Non-Impact Keyless Chuck" and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,501,473 entitled "Chuck", both commonly assigned to the present assignee, and whose entire disclosure is incorporated by reference herein.
Despite the success of keyless chucks such as set forth in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,125,673 and 5,501,473, varying configurations of keyless chucks are desirable for a variety of applications.